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The adroyt Salon: Virtual and IRL

There have been a higher than average number of people remarking on Twitter and Google+ during the past couple of days that they are shocked we’re zooming toward the end of 2011—just a week away from Thanksgiving today, in fact. Is it any wonder? October was slamming busy where design events were concerned—the A&D Film Festival, Tile of Spain’s “Material Matters” event, a wonderful evening of chocolate and flowers at Clodagh, the INAX showroom opening, Interiors From Spain’s closing party at the Tribeca Grand Hotel, Duravit’s Design Week and Highpoint Market (whew: and that’s just the tip of the proverbial iceberg)!

Bethanne Matari of Currey & Company said of this fall’s Highpoint, “It was well attended and buying was strong. The entire 6 days were filled with positive energy. Lots of the design world glitterati were out and about at book signings and various special events. We are feeling very optimistic about our business!”

Things won’t be letting up until we swing into Christmas holiday mode in mid-to-late December, as we are heading south for the Art Basel Miami Beach and Design Miami/ mêlée during which we will hold the adroyt salon IRL at Avant Gallery with Planar, who will debut new video technology, and Surface Magazine on November 30. We’ll be surrounded by the third installment of the gallery’s Pictures + Furniture exhibition as we 140 during our TwitSalon from 6 to 7 p.m.

The show will feature emerging industrial designers Chad Jensen, Philip Michael Wolfson and Pryor Callaway, and fine artists Arne Elias, Alec Monopoly and Guy Le Baube. A lighting sculptor, Callaway is designing a mobile art installation for Art Basel Miami Beach that will be exhibited in the gallery that evening as well.

So we’re guessing that the design arena, as dynamic as it is, isn’t the only sector of business that seems to be picking up steam as the year comes to a close. Our salon question this week is, “Do you feel time is moving faster with each passing year?” If so, how are you managing to deal with the pace? If not, do you have a secret that the rest of us could use to help us slow things down a bit? Where are Christopher Lloyd and his DeLorean when we need them, eh?

2 Responses so far.

I don’t know if time is getting faster with each passing year, but I sure as heck know that I am running out of it. We all are. But, on that happy note!!! :-)I think a lot of people are doing what I call a “slingshot around the moon” so named after the Apollo 13 trick about getting a dead spaceship back to a return trajectory. What we do is burn fuel enough to get to a certain point in our life where we’ve built enough inertia to have something like the moon (metaphorically) sling us around and into what we hope is a comfortable landing. If we miscalculate, though, we are either left dead and drop like a rock or flung far out into space without a net.50+ year-olds are slingshotting their careers, hoping to get to retirement without getting fired. Sick people are hoping to slingshot their way to 65 so they can finally get Medicare. Young kids are working 80-90 hours a week hoping to build careers that slingshot them into a comfortable management role. Writers are writing books, hoping to slingshot into a publishing contract. Musicians are slingshotting… you get the idea.And at the other end is a system that works to dismantle the “comfortable landing” we all tell ourselves is there.Both the fuel-burning stage and the miscalculation stage are the frantic periods where we feel time is speeding up. And the really cruel joke is that is no comfortable landing; we just hope there is.Oops.

Haha! Love the “oops” on the end, Rufus! It’s not an “oops” at all, though. Those of us who are making a living as SoMe consultants know all too well the strain it takes to maintain the momentum. Don’t get me wrong, it is thrilling at times but it does take an unusual amount of stamina and time just seems to zoom along at a rapid clip.That said, I think life would be careening even if I weren’t involved in such a lively business. I remember so clearly my mother telling me time would go faster as I aged. The caveat was in response to my complaining one rainy Sunday afternoon that I had nothing to do and time was going by so slowly. Wow: for one of those lazy teenage days back! Just one! I’m reading a great book right now recommended by my therapist, “The Presence Process,” which I think is going to be a turning point for me in how I deal with “time.” I’ll let you know how it shifts my attitudes, as I believe it will. Thanks, as always, for taking the time to chime in! Who knew dogs would turn out to be a blogger’s best friend?!